Commitment
  Be true to...............Loyalty
  Exercise patience with..........Tolerance
  Seek to understand..............................Open Mindedness
  Set aside time to help.........................................................Flexibility

Documentary available at  http://cincinnatiiptv.com

"The Vanishing Black Male" is a documentary produced by young men who seek advice from leaders in their community and young women concerning the many issues and obstacles they face today.  Told from the perspective of black men, "The Vanishing Black Male" will help you to identify ways to help in this crisis.

You will want to have your pen and note pad handy to jot down issues and ideas that come to you. Some of the issues addressed are:

1.  Mother's put sons in the position of feeling responsible to fill the shoes of the absent father at a young age. They worry about filling that role and taking care of their mother and miss out on a healthy mother-son relationship. They are not mothered and subconsciously begin to resent women. This adversely effects relationships with girl friends and wives.

2.  The media is a resource for the rich who exploit women and black men in particular.  Negative images and  music are big business.  This scheme is a another form of oppression (mind control), and young black males exposed to it emulate it until it  becomes reality.  He acts it out.  Shooting and going to jail become a right of passage. He has not identified positive ways to prove his manhood.

3. Black men carry the scars of parents and behaviors learned during slavery. No one ever cared to discuss his issues in the past, so he has held it all inside.  It festers.  Anger was channeled into devising ways to run away from the issue. That was one way to survive during slavery. It even even appeased those who never actually obtained freedom. All the thought was, "How to I get away from this place?" It was a means of survival all through Jim Crow when you were hung from trees, beaten, and humiliated.

Now the descendants of those who had him on the run back then have forgotten why he started running in the first place.  They have even taught his own women to hate him and his seed.  They all stand today ready to point out every way they perceive he falls short. Their solution is to just incarcerate him because they do not feel he is human anyway.  They prefer the control they had over him in slavery. Hence: Some Republicans Say Children Were Better Off in Slavery.

Anger arises quickly and he is ready to fight or flee.  Well, the answer to the black man's demise today must be different.  He needs to ask a new question: "How do I stick to this thing and work it out?"  We need him to stay home and and in school long enough to develop skills to one day stand by his wife and take care of his children and stay on that job!  He can do it if he comes to understand there is no quick-fix in life and that we have a whole community waiting to embrace him if he will put anger in check and stop running away into the arms of devices designed to enslave him.

The issues of language, dress, and respect for women are obvious. Some of the language in the video reflects this.  We must understand that all of the behaviors addressed above were learned during slavery. They are the behaviors that others attribute to being a part of our culture.  We had a culture well before slavery which reflects our true heritage.  The decision is our now to embrace our true heritage.  Do we want to continue to adopt the ones forced upon us by an oppressor?

Thank you to Conscious Media Productions for making this documentary available at  Cincinnati IPTV.  After you reach the site you will be able to locate the documentary in the black menu box attached to the video:

"The Vanishing Black Male" at CincinnatiIPTV